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Chapter Six: The Trap
Tuesday morning dawned amidst the first rays of summer, bright and still fresh. Life reawakening from the doldrums of the bleak English winter. The season's first butterfly twitched its powder blue wings among Ruth's window boxes on the external window ledge. Harry's gaze tracked its jagged progress as it flitted from petal to petal, weightless and beautiful on the flow of the breeze. Once, while he was serving in Belfast, an old woman with a bent back and cataracts told him butterflies were the souls of the dead, waiting to pass through Purgatory. That's why you shouldn't kill them, she said to the soldier with the big gun nestled like a new born in his arms.
Meanwhile, as their breakfast commenced, Ruth tiptoed around him as though he were a human land mine. He looked up from his newspaper and watched as she buttered her toast so slowly as to not make a sound, and felt his brow furrow into a deep frown. Would she try to stop her own heat next, just in case the endless beating set his temper off? Had he really been that bad? After a few seconds, she noticed him looking and stopped what she was doing.
"Are you all right?" she asked, her eyes meeting his. 'Are you about to blow your top,' is what she meant.
Somewhat askance, he replied: "Of course. Are you?"
"Yeah, fine," she replied, augmenting her fineness with a jerky nod.
He tried to return to the newspaper, but found his focus had been terminally disrupted. After checking to see if the butterfly was still doing its thing to the window box – and finding it gone – he returned his attention to Ruth. More than anything, he wished that she would say something. Anything. She had never been short of words before. Instead, it was left to him to pluck at a random memory, one that belly flopped back into his consciousness during the night as he revisited it in his nightmares.
"Once, I was on foot patrol in Derry-Stroke-Londonderry," he began, causing her to jump. "We used to patrol this place called the Bogside, a most fitting name. Anyway, it had all these Republican council estates and the soldiers all hated the place – we were coming under constant attack. I remember, I was just walking down the street and I was passed by kids from the Christian Brothers School, they were no older than twelve or so. As I passed, they all fell silent and serious, all huddled together. I thought they were terrified; I was a fully armed soldier after all. But as soon as they got a few feet away, they set off a load of fire crackers. I almost shot the little fuckers."
Ruth was quite composed as she listened to his reminiscences. "Harry, even if you had shot them, it would have served the little shits right."
It was a favourite trick of some of the local children. More than once, Harry had heard about less composed security services personnel panicking and returning fire without thinking twice. Only when it was too late did they realise they had been tricked and a dead child lay at their feet with their brains blasted out. The shame and the guilt always did for them; especially after being used as propaganda by enemy forces calling them cold-blooded child killers.
"It's not that, though," he replied. "I remember them looking back at me as they ran for it: laughing and laughing. They didn't care that I could have shot them; they just got a big kick out of seeing me fly into a blind panic, even if it did only last for a second. It was the trickery of it. It played on your mind and drove you mad with fear and suspicion. Threat was constant, but not always real…." His words trailed off, momentarily. "It's hard to explain."
"There's no explanation necessary," she said, reaching across the table for his hands. They met half way, gripping each other tight so that her nails dug into the backs of his hands. "At least, not unless you want to."
He knew she was referring to that morning's opening session of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Half the night he had lain awake trying to imagine what it would be like. No matter how it was dressed up in the information leaflets, it felt like he was about to go on trial. Like something straight from the mind of Kafka, he could barely imagine what for. But he knew it was time.
"I don't want to," he admitted. "But I've got to. For everyone's sake."
Loose gravel crunched under the wheels of the car as Harry and Bill drew to a halt outside the Divis Flats. A tower block two hundred foot high, containing twenty floors of abandoned flats and located in the Republican heartlands of West Belfast. Perfect cover for what they were doing, out of sight and guaranteed to be undisturbed. Shielding his eyes from the sun, Harry looked upwards, to the very top of the tower block. He could just make out the wiry antennae of British Army surveillance equipment that had been installed long before they arrived. Other than that, there was little to see beside the blank windows, sealed against intruders.
The compound in which the flats had been built was also sealed off by hoardings from a development company, due to move in within the next four months. Before the year was out, the tower they were looking at so intently would be nothing but a pile of rubble.
"They've hired a professional demolition team to come in and sort it out," Bill explained, while also studying the outside walls. "You have to wonder why when there's fellas just up the road who can do it for free."
Harry snorted. "We don't negotiate with terrorists," he pointed out. "I think that extends to doing business with them."
"Pride!" Bill retorted, dismissively. "The IRA should be given something useful to channel all that pent up frustration into."
"And give something back to the community they're destroying?" he suggested.
Bill shrugged. "It would be in the best way they know, at least."
Harry laughed as they exchanged a glance before setting off for the front entrance. It had been sealed off with steel window covers, but they'd had them removed prior to their arrival. Instead, there was a large, thick chain coiled through the door handles clasped together on a padlock that weighed a ton. Bill held it while Harry got to work with the key, supplied to them by Belfast City Council under the premise of them working for the demolition team.
Once inside, they found themselves in an empty, echoing porch area. If he looked up, the ceiling was not visible, but the chamber ran the length of the tower block. Only distant lights, fixed to the walls would have given any light, during the hours of darkness. Now, even those were no longer working. They went through a set of wooden doors, to an elevator that no longer worked, with a stairwell to the left. Both of them paused there, looking up into the darkness as their eyes adjusted to the sudden change of light.
"Remind me, Harry, how many floors is it again?"
"Twenty," Harry stated, flatly.
He had a feeling all those extra cross-country runs at Sandhurst were about to come in handy again. After a deep breath, they started their steep ascent. One every floor, there was a small corridor leading to four flats – two to the left and two more to the right. None of the overhead strip lights were working, so they would be reliant upon the end windows for light, as well as their emergency torches. Most of the flats they passed were locked, but others had been left wide open after the former occupants had left. Every so often, they paused to have a look round, making sure no enemy forces had been thinking along the same lines as them and set up equipment of their own.
Besides the graffiti on the magnolia walls, there was no sign of IRA activity anywhere. Up and up they went, growing breathless and hot. Never one with a head for heights, Bill averted his gaze whenever they passed a landing window. If he did catch sight of the sheer drop, he sagged against the interior walls with his head in his hands like a swooning maiden.
"We're only on the sixth floor, Bill," said Harry. "How are you going to handle the twentieth?"
"Let's just get on with it," he replied, gruffly.
Up and up they went, turning up the endless stairwells. It was hot, stuffy and dusty; all factors contributing to the greenness of Bill's pallor as they emerged, at long last, on the twentieth floor. The four flats in front of them had had their doors baton charged by the army, the doors smashed clean off their hinges. Inside, the rooms had been gutted and surveillance equipment had replaced the furniture that once stood there. There was even a powerful telescope set up in one of the windows that looked out over the Falls Road. As Harry's gaze alighted upon it, so did an ingenious idea.
"Here, Bill," he said, bounding over to it. "Look through this thing and trick your mind into thinking you're still on the ground floor!"
Bill was unimpressed. "You're a funny man, Harry Pearce."
Harry flashed him his most beatific of smiles. Meanwhile, Bill had tried to distract himself from his own vertigo by checking over the equipment they had. A reel to reel recorder for taping the conversations they heard, headsets for listening in, all connected to a bulky unit by an interior wall. Harry was relieved that it was nowhere near the windows. Weapons including three handguns had been secured in an old locker, to which Bill had the keys. However, they was no ammo left due to the army not being complete idiots.
"Your gun's loaded, isn't it?" Bill asked.
Harry nodded. "Of course."
Nonetheless, he withdrew it from the holster beneath his jacket and checked. Bill did the same, satisfying them both that all was as it should be. If they crossed into what was once a family kitchen, there were provisions already laid out for them: tinned spam and powdered egg; UHT milk and suspiciously aged looking tea bags. Harry sniffed at it tentatively, wrinkling his nose. Back in the lounge, static crackled to life as Bill flipped through the frequencies.
"Harry!" he called out. "There's something wrong with the bastard antennae!"
Harry closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels. "Shit!" he murmured. Not even he felt like a trip up on to the roof to fix the damn thing.
But it was up there, on the roof that they could see the city as a unified whole. A network of interlocking streets, endless houses the size of matchboxes from that height. Ringed by the Divis Mountain in the west, the Mournes in the south and Cavehill in the north. Napoleon's Nose jutted darkly into the azure skies; the twin cranes of Harland and Wolff dominated the skyline in the east. The peace wall snaked its way from west to north, keeping a warring community apart and reinforcing sectarian divisions with steel and razor wire. There, at the heart of the urban jumble, Belfast city centre nestled among the mountains and the walls, barricades and British Army checkpoints. Smoke curled darkly into heat haze shimmering over the small city; a fire or a bomb, they could not tell. It was probably both.
Harry surveyed it all, breathing in a good lungful of the sweet clear air, before turning on the spot to find Bill lying flat on his belly with his hands gripping a flagpole. The Irish tricolour flapped gently in the soft breeze above him. Sweat beaded his forehead and his face was greener than ever.
"Jesus, Bill!" said Harry, exasperated. "What's the point in you even being here?"
"I'm fine!" he insisted, voice muffled as he lay face down. "I'm abso-fucking-lutely fine!"
"Clearly," Harry sighed, casually stepping over him. As he passed his prostrate friend, he noticed his knuckles white and slick with sweat as he gripped the flagpole, like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. "Is throttling that thing really helping?"
Without waiting for an answer, he crossed to the barrier on the mercifully flat roof. A radio antennae had been fixed to the centre, but its base was close to the edge, where the drainage pipes were. He could see the problem straight away, but to get at the bent antennae, he had to brace his leg against the barrier, bringing him perilously close to the edge while he pulled it back into place. While he worked, there was the sound of movement from his side as Bill slowly pulled himself upright.
"I'm okay," he said aloud. "I'm okay, I'm fine. It's all okay."
Harry couldn't help but laugh as his friend began shuffling timidly over to where he was working on tightening up a lose connection.
"Here: I'll hold this while you do that," said Bill, shakily.
"You do that, Bill," Harry replied, without looking to see what he was actually doing. "You're a great help."
"I know. You'd be bloody lost without me."
Even Harry had to admit it was nerve wracking. The only thing keeping him in place as he working at the antennae was having his foot braced against the barrier and his back wedged against an old chimney stack, on which the broken equipment was fixed. Luckily, it did not take long to get it back in place.
"Hurry up, Harry, I'm going to fall," Bill urged him, just as he tightened the last bolt. "Then I'm going to puke and fall at the same time!"
Harry hopped back down to safety just as Bill lurched forward and vomited against the chimney stack. A heaving that carried enough to scare off some roosting pigeons. That thing he had been helpfully holding was nothing more than a piece of stray wire that wasn't actually connected to anything. With a sigh, he rolled his eyes and prepared to steer his friend back to safety.
Once they were off the roof and back in the flat, they tuned their equipment again. Bill was still trembling, but thanks to some Bushmills Single malt, he was starting to settle. They both listened through the headsets, as Bill altered the frequency and static slowly cleared. Voices formed through the hazy fuzz, clear and distinct as words began to form. Words … someone speaking Irish Gaelic.
They groaned in unison as they saw their efforts going to waste.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me?" said Bill, letting his head bump against the back wall.
Harry managed to raise a rueful smile. "Well, at least we know it's them," he said, looking on the bright side.
Bill returned his look, their eyes meeting across the equipment. After a moment of bewildered silence, they both dissolved into laughter.
Will paused before he entered the Guildhall, taking a moment to calm his nerves by taking in the medieval structure from the outside. It had always impressed him, every time he passed it he stopped to look but always deferred going inside. Now, the reason he was finally getting to take a look at the interior was to have the details of his father's grisly death spelled out to him. On the pavement outside, there was a rope forming a barrier around the grand main entrance. Small signs had been erected, pointing the right way in. There were other people there, too. Many speaking in strong Ulster accents, clearly over for the Committee. He had to admit to himself, it wasn't what he was expecting.
Before going in, he lit a cigarette and smoked it at his leisure while leaning against the pillars of the entrance. He scanned the passing crowds for any sign of Harry Pearce, recalling that he would be accompanied by his wife. That morning, he had received a text message from Catherine, wishing him good luck for the meeting. Just for the sake of it, he swiped at the screen of his phone to read it again, allowing a small smile to play at his lips.
There was still no sign of Harry by the time he had docked his cigarette out on top of a nearby bin, and the time was just gone ten. But before he could start suspect the old Spook had bottled out, a car with black tinted windows pulled up alongside the pavement outside the Guildhall. Out of the door nearest to him, a woman he did not recognise stepped out. Dressed in a navy blue skirt suit, she was at least fifteen years younger than Harry. But the man himself materialised from the opposite door and he joined hands with the woman when they met on the pavement.
"Sir Harry," said Will, by way of greeting. "Thanks for coming."
Harry raised the ghost of a smile. "I said I would. Let me introduce my wife, Ruth."
He gestured to the younger woman as Will shook her hand. "Lady Pearce, it's nice to meet you."
"Oh, please, just Ruth," she replied, smiling warmly.
"And its Evershed," Harry chipped in from the side. "She doesn't use her married name."
Will blushed, suddenly feeling old fashioned for having made the assumption. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't realise."
But Ruth was good natured about it. "Harry, you're scaring the boy!" she gently mocked. Turning back to Will, she added: "Don't let him scare you, it's really quite all right."
Introductions made, they headed indoors where they found themselves to be among a large crowd of people all taking seats in pews. The stained glass windows lining the back wall let in a flood of brightly coloured light, illuminating the interior all the way up to the old, wooden beamed ceiling. It was all very beautiful, but it still hadn't been quite what they were expected.
"Er, it's not exactly private, is it," said Will. "I thought it would just be the two of us alone in a room with that lady from Rwanda acting as referee."
"I thought much the same," replied Harry.
But, as it happened, they had to sit through a long, droning speech delivered by Catholic and Protestant clergymen about the importance of openness and transparency. A speech so long it took them until noon, when they found themselves being shepherded through a side door and into a large, stone vaulted chamber that was both freezing cold and so low that Will had to duck down to avoid hitting his head on the supporting arches. There was just one table, with three place mats set. A jug of water was sat in the middle, alongside plastic flowers. Assuming it was theirs, the three of them sat down and chatted idly until the door opened again.
A woman appeared, small and slight, with a bundle of papers in her arms. Clearly flustered, she drew a deep breath before joining them, her eye alighting on Ruth who was obviously sitting in her place.
"Apologies for keeping you all waiting," she said, in accented but perfect English. "My name is Valentina Mukamanzi and I will be acting as your interlocutor. It says here that there are only two of you?"
Ruth hastily rushed out of the way. "I'm not actually meant to be here, but my husband-"
"I asked her to be here," Harry cut over her. "I thought it would be okay?"
Will looked up at the newcomer. "I have no problem with Mrs Evershed being here."
"Very well," replied Valentina. "That won't be a problem."
However, to give the three of them some space, Ruth sat at another table that hadn't been set. She was some way off, but still in Harry and Will's line of vision. Will, meanwhile, felt the apprehension grow again. During the boring speech about why everyone ought to love each other forever, his nerves had been bored right out of him. But now it felt as though a moment had arrived, a pivot on which everything was set to turn. Opposite him, Harry held his gaze but his expression was utterly impassive. Between them, at the head of the small table, the Rwandan lady looked between them both through thick spectacles. She carried with her an air of calm stillness; someone who was in the room but not there for any other function than to make them feel at ease and guide them through a painful process she knew all too well herself.
But, as always with official committees, it began with another round of formal introductions. Even Ruth had to be brought back into the fold for that. They shook hands again and shared a drink from the jug that was set on the table. They each explained why they were there. Will could tell Harry was hating every moment of it and just playing along to make things easier on them. Not that Will could blame him. All he wanted was to get to the heart of the issue, instead of wasting time on niceties. Finally, when the time did come, it seemed to still manage to take them by surprise.
"Sir Harry," said Valentina, in her smooth lilting voice. "Why don't you begin by telling Will what it was you and his father were doing in Northern Ireland?"
Initially, it looked like Harry was going to answer Valentina directly, until she nodded to Will as a reminder that she was not officially in the room. When Harry turned to look at Will again, he noticed the older man had paled significantly. There was a tremor in his voice as he spoke, faltering and hesitant.
"Bill, your father, and I were running a very high level asset within the IRA," he began. "He supplied us with names of IRA members who were sitting on the Army Council. Normally, the Army Council would have been utterly impenetrable to us, but this asset really was that high up. For the record, his code name was Jack Knife but his real name was Brendan McLoan. He told us of a meeting that was taking place at a pub called the Felon's Club, right in the heart of the IRA's Belfast power base in the west of the city and he offered to enable us to listen in to that meeting. Naturally, we agreed. This would be top level intel on the IRA and its plans for future attacks not just in Ireland, but in England. It would also provide information on how the IRA was being funded, and exactly where their guns and semtex was coming from. We were blinded to the risks because of the potential of getting that vital information. We could have crippled them and saved countless lives.
To listen in, we set up our base at the top of an abandoned high rise that was due for demolition. The reception we got up there was perfect – clear as crystal, which was not so easy back then. The Divis Flats were just down the road from the Felon's Club. As it happens, we were walking into one big trap."
Will listened with rapt attention, realising that the moment really had come. He sat up straight, watching Sir Harry closely as he talked. He hadn't even begun properly and his distress was becoming visible already.
"Do you have anything you wish to ask, Will?"
It was Valentina who spoke, giving him a start. He had almost forgotten she was there.
"Okay," he said, hesitantly. "But, I think I understand actually. It's all good."
"Perhaps, Sir Harry, you could explain some of the spy jargon you use?" Valentina suggested. "For the benefit of Mr Crombie, who I believe is not in the service."
Harry looked instantly apologetic. "Of course. Stop me any time and I'll give you an over view."
"Happy days," said Will, although it was anything but. "Now all I want to know is how my Dad died."
Once more, Harry met his gaze from across the small space of the table. His expression, normally so unreadable, became set with determination. "Very well," he replied.
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